Breakdown of Maalesef ikinci sultan çok zalimmiş.
çok
very
iki
two
maalesef
unfortunately
sultan
sultan
zalim
cruel
ikinci
second
Questions & Answers about Maalesef ikinci sultan çok zalimmiş.
Why use zalimmiş instead of zalimdi here?
Zalimdi uses the definite past tense (-di), which would imply the speaker personally lived through or witnessed the sultan's cruelty. Because this is a historical figure, the speaker uses the reported past suffix -miş to show they learned about this fact from history books, stories, or other people. In English, this often translates to 'was apparently' or 'is said to have been'.
Why is the reported past suffix -miş instead of -mış attached to zalim?
It follows the rules of 4-way vowel harmony. The last vowel in the root word zalim (cruel) is 'i'. Under 4-way vowel harmony, if the last vowel of a word is 'e' or 'i', the suffix must also use an 'i'.
How is the word ikinci (second) formed?
It is made from the number iki (two) plus the suffix -(i)nci, which creates ordinal numbers (like adding '-nd' or '-th' in English). Because iki already ends in a vowel, the starting vowel of the suffix is dropped to avoid having two vowels next to each other, making it ikinci instead of ikiinci.
Why does maalesef have two 'a's, and how should I pronounce it?
Maalesef (unfortunately) is a loanword from Arabic. The double 'a' tells you to pronounce it with a slightly longer, drawn-out 'ah' sound at the beginning: 'mah-le-sef'.
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